Dr. Delaney Kirk Offers Tips on Taking Back the Classroom and Becoming a More Effective Teacher.

Icebreakers For The First Day Of Class

Getting
to know a little about your students the first day of class helps to
make them feel more comfortable in the classroom with you and each
other. Doing an icebreaker is a good way to involve the class and show
that you expect them to participate in class activities. Some examples
of icebreakers include:

Have
students introduce themselves (you pick the categories such as name,
major, home town, most unusual job held, favorite author, latest book
read, thing they are most proud of, etc).

Put students in pairs and have them share info. Each person then introduces their partner to the rest of the class.

Give
students a stick-on badge and have them write several descriptive terms
about themselves. Then have the students find someone else in the room
with similar descriptions and spend 2-3 minutes talking with that
person.

Have
each student introduce themselves by saying "I've done something no one
in this class has done which is ..." If another student has done this,
the student must find something else to share.

Put
together a bingo card with various descriptors such as "has more than
one major," "is from Chicago," "has a twin," etc. Have the students
mingle to find others to sign their card in the appropriate boxes if
they fit the descriptor.

Have students introduce themselves and tell how they got their name (could be nickname).

Put
students in small teams of 4-5 people and have them develop a list of
things they have in common. Have them share the most interesting things
with the class.

Have
a bag of trinkets including things like a pencil, spoon, gum,
whiteout, string, lots of McDonald's kids toys, etc. Have each student
pick something from the bag that represents their personality and share
why as they introduce themselves.

Icebreakers can even be used in large classes. Charlotte D. Sutton
(Auburn University) teaches Management classes with 400 students. She
has them break into groups of 4-5 and introduce themselves and share
phone numbers so that everyone knows others in the class. Then they
have to identify the five most important things that a manager does.
After they have done that, she goes through the class with a wireless
microphone and get a representative of most of the teams to share what
they thought. Another student writes all of this on the board. She
says that when done, she basically has an outline of the class and is
able to say, "Good, these are the things we are going to talk about
during the course this semester."

Obviously
icebreakers take time that first day of class but they are worth it in
terms of establishing the classroom culture you want.